live

I noticed this passage in Ellul's The Presence of the Kingdom:

The central problem which today confronts a Christian is not to know how to act, it is not to choose one method out of innumerable forms of action which the world suggests to us, it is not to act with, or against, or in any other way. When we see the innumerable efforts for action that the Churches make, when we see all the 'calls to action' and programs... we cannot help but be horrified at this miserable imitation of the world, of the works of the prince of this world.

...What matters is to live, and not to act. In this world, this is a revolutionary attitude, for the world only desires (utilitarian) action, and has no desire for life at all.

...What hinders us is that we can only conceive action in the rational form of mechanical means. We can no longer conceive it in the form which is constantly suggested in the Scriptures: the corn which grows, the leaven at work within the bread, the light which banishes the darkness.... Yet it is this kind of action which we can really have, because it is how the Holy Spirit works.

Thus it is the fact of living, with all its consequence, with all that it involves ["our words, our habits, our decisions"], which is the revolutionary act par excellence.... In a civilization which has lost the meaning of life, the most useful thing a Christian can do is live, and life, understood from the point of view of faith, has an explosive force. We are not aware of it, because we only believe in 'efficiency,' and life is not efficient.